SamizdatMath

Back in the 1980s (before most of you were born), the A & W hamburger restaurant chain tried to go head to head with McDonalds' new "quarter pounder" by creating and marketing a "⅓ pound hamburger." It was a spectacular flop. A research company hired to find the source of the problem found out that half of the people surveyed thought that there was less meat in a ⅓ lb. burger than a ¼ lb. burger because, well, "3 is less than 4." The burger was renamed the "Big Papi" and continued to be sold b

This is a wonderful activity which uses a real life paradox to explore how ratios change by adding the same number to the quantities being compared. We start with our friend Bud and his nephew Lou. Bud is 40, Lou is 10, so the ratio of Bud's age to Lou's age is 40:10, or 4:1. 5 years later, Bud is 45, Lou is 15, so now the ratio has changed: their ratio is 45:15, which can be simplified down to 3:1. Using this idea (which was based on a very inappropriate Abbot & Costello routine from long ago)

You see those gift cards hanging on the rack near the checkout counter? Well, they're a total ripoff, and this activity will show your students once and for all why they should just never, ever buy them. And maybe you won't either! Using a listing of 4 different values of gift cards from a popular "big box" store (whose name shall not be named here, except for the fact that they pay their employees substandard wages, prevent them from unionizing and then encourage them to go on food stamps....)

Since the first modern Olympics in 1896, runners in the 100 meter sprint have been setting records on a regular basis, earning the title of the "fastest human on earth." How long can these records be broken? Will there eventually be a runner who can do the 100 meter sprint in just a few seconds? This activity shows students how the change from measuring time from tenths of a second to hundredths of a second allowed more records to be broken, and that by graphing these records, the new records ca